


fruits of the forest

by someoneplsloverobbierotten



Category: LazyTown
Genre: (Kinda anyway), Alternate Universe, Enemies to Friends, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Fae Robbie Rotten, Friends to Lovers, Hades and Persephone AU, M/M, Sportacus's real name is Tryggvi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2018-01-15
Packaged: 2019-02-03 01:27:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12738237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/someoneplsloverobbierotten/pseuds/someoneplsloverobbierotten
Summary: After spending most of the day trekking through the forest to the neighbouring village, Sportacus gets a little peckish. Instead of eating the food he's brought with him, why not see what nature has to offer?It turns out, that there's a reason you shouldn't eat things you find in the forest - especially not suspiciously perfect-looking apples.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Not quite sure where this will go... bear with me.

The walk between villages is very long. 

Tryggvi, like most Elves, doesn't mind this at all though; the space between villages is filled with forest, and as a species who value physical strengths and labours almost as much as they do nature, a long, tiresome walk through the forest is practically a dream for them.

No-one from the Elven villages minds these kinds of treks, and Tryggvi is no different; there's a spring in his step as he starts off into the woods surrounding his village, and he practically skips into the trees. The thought of being immersed in nature for almost an entire day, feeling the muscles in his chest and legs burn for over half of it fills him with excitement. 

Even better is the prospect of living off the forest itself for the day. Tryggvi knows his stuff; he knows which plants are safe to eat, which ones hold the most nutritional value, which plants to avoid and which are poisonous. He knows how to identify certain vegetables he may find growing, as well as any mushrooms or berries he comes across. As such, he's only put a small loaf of bread and a skein of water in his backpack, confident that in a forest such as this he'll be able to find more than enough to eat, and find it with ease. Even if he doesn't, he has enough food with him to keep him going for a day at least - he is no fool, it is _always_ best to be prepared - but he's sure that he'll be able to find other things.

He can hear the birds sing in the trees above him, and the movement of tiny creatures in the underbrush. So far he's seen a small party of deer - including a fawn - snuffling around, and he hasn't even been walking an hour yet. It puts a smile on his face that doesn't dim even when it starts to rain a little while later. It's not even a strong shower, just a little spitting - practically _mist_ \- and Tryggvi can't find it in himself to be anything more than joyful about it, he really can't. He likes the feel of the water on his face, it's not hot enough to make his clothes sticky or uncomfortable, just a bit wet, and they'll dry out naturally later. Even if the heavens opened and it started pouring, Tryggvi doesn't think he'd care. If he gets soaked, well, then he gets soaked. It's only water.

Regardless, the tiny spell of rain disappears after half an hour and he continues on his journey, clothes drying naturally in the sun. It makes his hair a little curlier than usual, perhaps a little fluffier or frizzier too, but it doesn't bother him. At around midday he finds a family of squirrels chasing each other around a small group of trees and he sits down to watch, snacking on a handful of chestnut mushrooms he'd found on his way. It's peaceful - aside from when one of the younger squirrels misses a branch and falls from the tree, at which point Tryggvi is pretty sure he has a heart attack - and quiet and nice and just fantastic, and it's exactly why he wanted to go on this trip. He hasn't made it in a while - as one of the younger Elves in his village he doesn't yet have the need to - and it's been making him a little restless. It's good to be back in the forest again. Maybe when he gets to the other village he'll even find something nice in the market - he has no reason to trade during his trips yet, but he's brought money just in case and a little souvenir would be a lovely bonus to what is turning out to be a very good trip.

Maybe next year he'll make a trip to one of the villages further north; it's a three day trip at least, and will take him around some of the mountain trails, but three days of camping in the forest? Even the idea sets his heart aflutter.

After the squirrels stop their game and bound off further into the canopy, Tryggvi gets up and continues to walk.

Part of him wants to carve his name into the bark of a tree. It's a silly thought, one that he would never follow through on, but the disorder to leave his mark in this forest, leave some sigh that he was here, is very strong.

Instead of disfiguring the poor bark of a tree, later, when he comes across a stream and re-fills his skein, he sits at the edge and carves a protection tune into a stone he finds as he watches the fish in the water. He has no need of a protective stone, so he leaves it for someone else to find - should they ever - but it's something. The action is largely pointless, as the chance of someone else finding the stone is unbelievably tiny, but it has made him happy.

A half hour or so later, Tryggvi starts feeling a little peckish. He reaches into his backpack and takes a sip of water, but decides against eating any of the bread. He's had half of it throughout his journey so far and he's like to have something else instead. No sense in eating all the bread when there's a whole forest on offer, yes?

He scans the nearby trees and plants as he walks, on the look out for anything tasty. He sees a few more mushrooms, and a couple of berry bushes, but what really catches his eye is what appears to be a cluster of fruit trees a little ways away. He picks a few of the berries anyway, careful of the brambles and thorns protecting them, and flicks them into his mouth as he approaches the trees.

Today must be Tryggvi's lucky day.

If asked what his favourite food is, Tryggvi would answer without hesitation. Apples are by far his favourite, in any form, and they are his first choice above all other foods for a snack (with carrots a close second). He reaches the trees, peers up into their branches, and sees fat, round apples peeking through the leaves.

Tryggvi grins.

Even though he's not exactly the tallest of elves (though he would like to point out that he is also not the shortest either,) there's a couple that are within easy reach even when he is stood on the ground - though he _does_ love to climb trees.  He drops his pack by the tree's roots and stretches an arm out to pluck one of the apples from its branch. The stem breaks with a very satisfying snap and Tryggvi brings the fruit to his face to look for any maggot holes or bruises, but there are none. The apple is absolutely fine - almost perfect, he would say. It's a little bigger than most of the apples he's had before, and a lot redder too, shiny and bright.

He decides there and then, even before he's had a taste, that he'll take a few of them with him on his journey. He might as well, no one else is around to eat them, and they look so good. He'd love to have a couple of these to keep him going through the rest of his hike.

He can pick more later though; he's hungry, and the apple looks delicious, so he takes a bite.

It's _beautiful._

The skin isn't too tough or tart, and the flesh inside is gorgeously crisp, as well as unusually sweet. It's almost _too_ sweet; Elves aren't good at all with sugar, and some can even get sick off of fruit that is too sweet, but Tryggvi finds it very nice, not sickly at all, and it has a very pleasant crunch. He's very likely to eat the core of this one.

He swallows, savouring the unusual taste, and goes to take a second bite when he hears someone screaming.


	2. Chapter 2

_"PUT THAT DOWN!"_

Tryggvi jumps, turning around to see a tall figure in a dark grey cloak striding towards him.

 _"PUT IT DOWN!"_ the figure screams, _"PUT IT DOWN, **NOW!"**_

Tryggvi drops the apple to the ground and throws his hands up, palms towards the figure to show that they're empty.

The figure hurries towards him, cloak billowing behind them, and Tryggvi has to fight the urge to run before they can hurt him. They still might, but he doesn’t know what has happened; if it's thieving that’s the problem or something worse, like poison, and he knows that the best decision is to stay and find out - even if it terrifies him.

The figure storms over to him and catches sight of the discarded fruit on the forest ground, a chunk missing from its side. Their grey eyes widen. "Spit it out!" they demand, pointing sharply at the floor, "spit it _out!"_

"I- I can't," Tryggvi stutters, "I a- ate it."

Horrified, the person lurches to grab the dropped apple and turns it over in their hands, frowning and muttering at it. He thrusts the apple back out to Tryggvi, who automatically recoils from it. "How much did you eat," they demand, "how many bites?"

"J- just one," Tryggvi tells them, trying to sound assuring even though he doesn’t know if 'just one' will be a good thing or not.

They raise a hand to their head and rub at their forehead with long fingers, a pained look on their face. The movement shifts the hood of their cloak back a little, showing Tryggvi a strong jaw and sharp, high cheekbones.

"Is… is it poisonous?" Tryggvi whispers, suddenly feeling very cold. It didn’t taste poisonous… but, oh _Gods,_ what if it was?

"No," the person says quietly. "Not poison."

Tryggvi can't help but breathe a sigh of relief. It must just be thievery then. "I'm sorry," he tries, "I didn’t know the tree belonged to someone, I-"

"Shut up," the figure snaps, squeezing their eyes closed.

Tryggvi shuts up.

After a few seconds, the person lets out a heavy sigh and holds the apple up. "This is Fæ food," they say, a weary acceptance to their tone.

The shock is overridden by the panic that Tryggvi feels burning through his body.

 _"Fæ food?"_ Tryggvi can't believe it, he stares, gobsmacked, at the apple in the person's hand. "But- but Fæ do not _like_ fruit!" he argues, "it's bad luck to leave fruits for Færies and Fæ."

The person rolls their eyes. "Fæ like _sweet_ fruits; Fæ fruits, grown by our own hand and our own magic. We do not take fruits from others," they say with a hiss, "they are sour and disgusting."

Tryggvi stares at the figure - the _Fæ_ \- and tries to keep himself calm.

"What else did you eat?" the Fæ questions him harshly. They're almost a full head taller than Tryggvi, and they loom above him. The frightening glare they are directing at him is not helping either; Tryggvi has never felt so small or intimidated.

"Just the apple - and some of those b- blackberries," he points to the bramble bush he'd picked from a few meters back and the Fæ seems to relax a little, though they are still clearly tense and unhappy.

"Those are not mine - I eat them, but I have not grown them," the Fæ shakes their head, the hood falling back a little to show neatly styled black hair. "You are sure you have not eaten anything else from here?" They gesture to the surrounding trees.

"No," Tryggvi says, "nothing - I have not eaten anything but my own food for the last mile."

"Good," the Fæ grunts, and starts to circle the Elf like a vulture. They regards Tryggvi suspiciously and casts scrutinising looks at his clothes. "What protection charms do you have on you?" they ask slowly.

"I- none," Tryggvi tells them, taken aback, and the Fæ scoffs.

"Do not lie to me," they spit, "you should not be here; you should not have been able to find my fruit to eat it," they step closer to Tryggvi, who steps back. "My wards should have kept you out."

Oh.

"Do- do your wards detect magic?" Tryggvi asks quietly, and the Fæ's eyes turn steely and narrow.

"Yes."

"I don’t have any magic," he admits, lowering his gaze to the ground. "Not a drop. Your wards won't have seen me as anything other than a deer." The Fæ reels back a bit in shock, but Tryggvi speaks again before they have the chance to comment on it. "So what… happened, then. What does it mean - are the legends true?"

Children in the village are told many things as they grow up: eat fats to keep warm through winter, don’t go too far into the forest, don’t talk to strangers, don’t eat food that strangers give you - especially from Fæ. All children are taught that eating Fæ food traps you for eternity.

The Fæ turns to look out the trees, shuffling its feet. "Somewhat." They look… uneasy, almost. "When a non-Fæ eats Fæ food from a Fæ land, it binds that non-Fæ to that land."

"But this is not a Fæ land," Tryggvi argued, "I have not entered the Fæ land… have I?" He did not remember anything that would indicate that he had - no strange feelings or palpable magic, no change in the sky or the positions of the stars, or the forest. He had still heard the birds and the animals roaming the forest, and hadn't heard any strange or out of place sounds. The thought that he has accidently stumbled into the Fæ land without knowing so terrifies him.

"You have not," the Fæ assures him, and Tryggvi feels lightheaded with relief. "But you have entered Fæ territory, and you have eaten fruit grown by me within that territory."

"What does that mean?"

"You- you are bound to the territory of the fruit you ate. _My_ territory," the Fæ explains, reluctantly. They avoid Tryggvi's eyes. "You cannot leave here."

Tryggvi's stomach falls out of his body and lies in knots on the floor. "How long?" he forces himself to ask, surprised to find his voice reasonably steady.

 _Forever,_ the tales of his people whisper.

"One month," the Fæ responds, "one bite; one month."

Tryggvi sways on the spot and the Fæ jumps, looking at the Elf warily. "Just- just one month?" Tryggvi asks when he's regained his balance, looking up into the Fæ's eyes hopefully. The Fæ looks away, but nods, and Tryggvi finds himself nodding too; an outlet for the nervous energy building in his system. "One month isn't so long," he says to himself, still nodding frantically, "a little longer than I intended to spend away from my village…"

Alright - quite a lot longer as he was only planning on spending three days away at most, but a month is still a lot less than _forever._

The Fæ starts sputtering, taking shocked steps back. "That- that's it?" The Fæ demands, bumping into the trunk of the apple tree, "you are bound here by magic and your first reaction is- is _acceptance?"_

Tryggvi gives a small shrug. "One month is much less than the eternity I was expecting," he explains, "and I have never heard tales where the captured person escapes, so I- I assumed that that wasn’t an option. I have eaten your fruit and so the magic decrees that I stay here, that… is just the way things are."

"That's-" The Fæ recoils, disgusted, and almost hits his head on a branch as they straighten up to their full height and glare down at Tryggvi. "That is _not_ 'just the way things are'," they shout, "I do not want you bound to me for a month!"

"Is there a way to dispel the bond, then?" Tryggvi asks, and the Fæ's cheeks redden.

"I- there _must_ be," they declare, a slightly frantic edge to their voice, but Tryggvi can't find it inside himself to agree. Not one tale Tryggvi has ever heard has mentioned the Fæ actually enchanting the food that the prey eats; the way the tales phrase things makes it seem to Tryggvi that the magic is a side effect of Fæ food being Fæ food, not just a spell attached to the food by another party, that the food is grown with such magic imbued in it - through nature, not the intent of the Fæ themselves.

"I don't think there is," Tryggvi says. Elves tend to be realists, and he can tell that the Fæ does not appreciate this.

"What do _you_ know," they hiss, "you are not a Fæ, you know nothing of our magics." They step away from the tree and shake their head. "No, no," they say, readjusting their hood, "there must be a way. I refuse to deal with an _Elf_ in my home for an _entire month."_ They turn abruptly and immediately begin to march back off into the forest.

Tryggvi doesn’t know what to do, but seeing as he hasn’t been given any instructions to the contrary he swiftly scoops up his backpack and hurries to follow. It takes him a couple of minutes to catch up and even then he ends up having to jog, as the sheer length of the Fæ's legs make their purposeful strides hard to keep up with. Curiosity at where he's being taken itches under his skin and he's desperate to ask questions, but the determined expression on the Fæ's face makes Tryggvi think that they wouldn’t appreciate being interrupted right now so he decides to wait until they have reached… wherever it is they're going.

Tryggvi follows him through the forest, careful not to catch the flowing edge of the Fæ's cloak with his feet. After ten minutes, he thinks he sees something in the distance, through the trees to his left. He squints, but only manages to see something when the trees thin out a few seconds later. He doesn't know what it is but it looks white - and large. Very large. He can only see a little bit of it from here - a fuzzy cloud at the far reach of his vision - but whatever it is extends for a quite a while, width-ways. He's so intent on trying to figure out what it is that he almost walks straight into the Fæ's back and he stumbles, turning back around to see that the Fæ - who has yanked the train of his cloak out of harm's way and is glaring at him as if Tryggvi's touch might set it on fire at any second - has stopped. Cheeks burning, Tryggvi bows his head in apology and steps back a little, and in doing so, he notices why they stopped.

The two of them are stood in front of a reasonably sized wooden cabin. It looks well-maintained, with a porch area at the front and a window in the roof that he thinks indicates an upstairs, or at least some loft space since there only seems to be one floor. Each window has a box nailed to its sill with different kinds of herbs growing inside them, except for the window in the roof, and as the Fæ moves forward to open the door, Tryggvi notices a little basket of purple flowers hanging next to it that he finds charming.

After muttering something too quiet for Tryggvi to hear, the Fæ opens the door and steps inside. Unsure whether or not he's meant to follow, Tryggvi just hovers around the porch outside. He doesn’t want to intrude on someone's home, and the Fæ hasn’t explicitly invited him in so…

The Fæ in question realises that Tryggvi isn't going to move without being told to and rolls their eyes, gesturing through the doorway sharply with their hand. "What are you, secretly a vampire?" they grouse. "Hurry up and get in here - I want this over with."

Tryggvi quickly moves inside.


End file.
